


The Things We Carry

by mikkey_bones



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 20th Century, Anthropomorphism - Freefom, Gen, Historical, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 01:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/pseuds/mikkey_bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short sketch of post-breakfast conversation between Francis and Arthur. They remember what they can, and never say everything they think. Set post-Entente, perhaps 1906.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Carry

Francis was in an oddly philosophical mood that morning. He sipped his coffee - never tea - and stared out with low-lashed blue eyes at the busy streets. "Do you remember the Revolution." It wasn't a question. They all remembered the Revolution, even Alfred, who hadn't been there; had merely heard about it from across the ocean.

"Yes, I remember." That was not an answer. They amused themselves by saying exactly what the other wanted in a manner so contrary as to make even the most inocuous conversations appear an argument.

"And the other revolution." The one that didn't receive such an immense gravity in Francis's slightly accented tones; the one that had occurred on a different continent not too long before his own. The one that had shattered a world and birthed a new power.

"Of course I do." He wondered why they were even talking. When had they ever talked? - more than he thought they could. They always talked more than that. More than he thought he ever wanted to. They never stopped talking.

"The Seven Years."

"Yes."

"Augsburg."

"Yes."

"And the Italian Wars."

"Yes."

"The Hundred Years."

"... Yes." Perhaps Arthur thought he knew where he was getting at. Perhaps not. The light was slanted through kitchen windows that remained open to the cool morning air,landing diagonally on tabletops and highlighting Francis's hair with the briefest tinge of gold. An imaginary crown for a fallen prince. Arthur was sitting in the shadows.

"Agincourt."

Arthur laughed. It sounded harsh and out of place in the rarified air.

Francis took that as a yes. Of course he remembered Agincourt. Both of them did. Neither could forget. "And Orleans." It was more of a listing of battles, of wars they had fought, than a series of questions. He could perhaps list them all in his mind, up to 1066 at least, because before that he wasn't quite sure. Before that they had gone their separate ways.

Silence. He remembered Orleans too, then.

"And Jeanne."

More silence. Francis could never tell whether it was guilty silence, vindicated silence, or the awkward, uncomfortable silence that begged to change the subject before it was too late. A wisp of steam rose up from his mug of coffee and bathed his face in momentary warmth. He always put too much cream and too much sugar in his coffee, to make it too sweet and too pale. Sweet pale things. Maidens with hearts of gold and iron, and armor of the same.

"Normandy."

"William," Arthur agreed. The Conqueror - an unspoken epithet. His tea was growing cold. He always brought his own leaves with him. He didn't trust Francis to make tea properly, though he often used his dented brass teakettle. It was the only one in his entire house, and (Arthur thought) the only reason he kept it around was for mornings like these.

"Before that there was Rome." Francis ran a finger around the rim of his coffecup, spreading the leftover liquid into an even coating. When he pressed the finger to his lips it tasted like sugar. "Caesar. You fought him with me, sometimes."

Arthur stared into his tea, dark liquid like the surface of a tarnished mirror. His mind felt like that too sometimes, in the furthest recesses of his memory. "I... don't remember," he said. He didn't like not remembering. It reminded him of how much older Francis really was and how old they both were.

"And then you said," Francis reminisced, "that our mother liked you better."

The tea was definitely cold now, and he had barely had any. "I don't remember," he repeated. He thought he had seen Francis's point but it had gone away again, like the steam from his cup that had ceased to rise. "You had a mother?"

"I must have," Francis said. These were the things they clung to, the thoughts that kept them human in their minds and bodies although they were not _human_. If they did not have a mother, a father, than what were they? And who was the first among them? No one. Because they all came from someone else. That they believed. "I don't know," Francis added after a moment. Perhaps he did not believe. "But you fought Caesar. And you drove him back."

"Island," Arthur replied automatically, wondering when he stopped using occasions like this to lecture Francis about his innate superiority and instead attempted to be modest.

"He conquered all of Gaul; killed a quarter of mine and took as many as slaves." He pointed to a faint white line on his collarbone, slicing down; if he were not sitting in the light, Arthur would never have seen it.  
 __

 _I know all the scars I gave you_ , Arthur remembered telling Francis. _I don't like the ones I can't place_. "Why." Thy were good at these, these flat non-questions.

"I was just thinking," Francis replied. He stared down at the street. Perhaps he would move soon. He would like to have a garden, though not as extensive as the one at Versailles; something modest with roses and apple trees. Unplanned and mostly spontaneous. He would perhaps even be able to grow it himself. "Do you ever have dreams?" He was lost in a reverie and so forgot to make it a non-question.

"Sometimes," Arthur replied. "Maybe." They were more half-memories, clad in the soft twilight of age and usually moments he had until then forgotten. The drafty castle halls, sitting on the floor and wrapped in a blanket. Learning how to use a longbow. Running gangly and colt-like across the green moor. A redhaired woman he thought might be his mother.

"Every night," Francis said. He looked tired. "About my heroes and my battles and my losses and my scars."

Arthur looked at him, saw for the first time the faint smudges under his eyes that bespoke of restless nights. He said nothing.

"I miss them," Francis confessed. "You think you can keep moving but maybe something gets stuck, along the way. Things will never be the way they used to be."

And perhaps that is for the best, Arthur said in his mind but did not say aloud. He had noticed that Francis mentioned Jeanne but not Napoleon. Perhaps that wound was too fresh, though nearly a hundred years had passed. They had once fought for about a hundred years. It was strange how time passed both quickly and slowly. "We wait for the future," he attempted.

"We always do," Francis answered and finished his coffee. Left in the cup was the dregs of sugar that had not completely dissovled. They sat there like clear grains of sand on a porcelain beach. "I think," he said. The morning sun was not halfway through the sky. Arthur was reminded of the words of a philosopher, one of Francis's, if he was not mistaken (he rarely was) - _I think therefore I am_. They were.

"I think that tomorrow, we shall sleep in past noon. Waking early is for the battlefield."

They were not at war. For once, they were not at war with each other. Arthur placed his cup down. Cold tea was undrinkable. "I agree," he said. He still managed to make it sound like an argument.


End file.
